


I would offer you a warm embrace

by torigates



Category: Bones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 03:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torigates/pseuds/torigates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even as a child, he had been obsessed with understanding why people did the things they did. It was what had originally drawn him to psychology, and it was what kept him interested and passionate about his profession.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I would offer you a warm embrace

 

 

  
One of the first questions Lance remembered asking his mother (his real mother, not his birth mother) was why he had marks on his back. None of the other kids had marks on their backs. Why did he?

His mom had pulled him into her lap, and pressed her cheek to the top of his head. When she pulled back, he could see tears in her eyes. Lance hadn’t meant to make her cry.

“Because the last place you lived was not a good place,” she finally said.

Lance could remember that. He could remember being scared and sad and hurt, and he could remember not understanding what he had done wrong.

He still didn’t understand.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

Even as a child, he had been obsessed with understanding why people did the things they did. It was what had originally drawn him to psychology, and it was what kept him interested and passionate about his profession.

Dr. Brennan would say that psychology was a soft science, and Agent Booth asked him to work his shrink-mojo, but Lance understood that psychology was about so much more than that. It was about understanding and predicting the patterns in human behaviour. It was about learning what made people do the things that they did, and say the things that they said and the motivations behind that.

Brennan could complain all she wanted that psychology was just a bunch of guesswork and not a real science, but he knew better, and what was more, he never took offense to the things she said because he understood the reasons she was saying them.

 _That_ was the best thing about his job.

Of course, that didn’t mean that people stopped surprising him. That was the other great thing about his job; it gave him the tools he needed to understand the fundamentals of people, but humanity was and remained largely a mystery.

It was what kept him striving to know more, to be better.

On that, he thought, Dr. Brennan would agree.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

Dr. Hodgins came out from the delivery room. Sweets stood in the waiting room and watched his friends crowd around the newest addition to the Jeffersonian. He watched Cam coo happily over the newborn, and Wendell give Hodgins and congratulatory pat on the back. He watched Booth expertly hold Michael, and he stood back from it all.

Hodgins looked up at him and smiled. “Want to meet my son?” he asked.

He stepped forward and looked at the tiny person in Hodgins’ arms. He wanted to reach out and touch the baby, but he was scared. Hodgins smiled fondly down at Michael, and Lance felt a longing in his chest. For his parents, for his own family.

“Want to hold him?” Hodgins asked.

He must have looked panicked because Hodgins laughed. “You can do it,” he said.

Lance held out his arms, and Hodgins carefully transferred Michael into them. He looked down at the baby, who was sleeping peacefully. He had never really noticed how tiny newborn children were before. It was a miracle; that this tiny, little thing would grow into a person with desires and motivations of his own, completely separate from his parents.

“Hi,” Sweets whispered.

Michael didn’t answer.

He rocked the boy in his arms while his friends stood around him. Finally, Cam stepped close to him. “My turn,” she said. “I want to hold the baby.”

Sweets gladly gave him up.

He stepped back, and Hodgins, Wendell and Booth crowded around Cam and Michael. He noted how content people were to simply stand around staring at babies. Observing the miracle of life, he supposed.

Finally, Jack took his son back in his arms, and they went to greet Angela. She looked exhausted, but happy. Brennan was sitting next to her on the bed, their heads bowed closely together. Angela looked up and smiled at them when they came in, and he watched the way her eyes were immediately drawn to her husband and son.

He watched the way Brennan looked at both Angela and Booth, and he knew something was about to change. Psychology might be a soft science, but Sweets understood how people worked. He understood how Brennan worked.

They stayed for a while longer, the Jeffersonian family, sitting and watching the new baby, watching Angela and Hodgins’ happiness. Finally, Brennan stood to leave, promising that she would be back the next day to visit Angela. Booth offered to walk her out.

Cam walked over and kissed Angela on the cheek, and gave Hodgins a hug. She held out her hand to Sweets, and he took it. She pulled him to his feet.

They walked down the hall arm in arm, and Cam pushed the button for the elevator. She looked over at him. “You’re being quiet,” she said.

He nodded. “I’m a bit in awe,” he said.

She smiled at him. “Babies can do that.”

The elevator doors opened, and they rode down to the ground floor in silence. He walked with Cam to her car, and the two of them stood together beside it. The night air was cool. Sweets wanted to say something to express how he felt, the words were bubbling up inside him, and he felt almost like if he just opened his mouth they would all come pouring out into the night.

“I can’t believe it,” he said simply instead.

Cam smiled again. “That is the great thing,” she said. “Every time we can’t believe it, but babies just keep happening. Isn’t it great?”

“It is,” he said. “It really is.”

She hugged him and he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her in close. When she pulled back she smiled. “Good night.”

“Good night,” he said, turning and walking to his car.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

When Booth told him that he and Brennan were going to have a baby Sweets smiled from ear to ear. Booth grinned back, looking relieved.

That was the great thing about psychology. Sweets understood motivations and what drove people to do the things that they did. He could analyse and predict patterns in human behaviour. He could guess what people were going to do, and the reasons they did those things.

He was still surprised. He was constantly and wonderfully surprised by the things that people did, and it was that which made the human experience ultimately spectacular.

Booth hugged him, and Sweets offered his heartfelt congratulations.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

Years later, Sweets would explain to Dr. Brennan why her teenage daughter did the things that she did, and even though Brennan complained that it defied logic, she seemed to accept his answers.

Psychology might be soft, but so were people.

(Except, Lance could concede, for their bones.)


End file.
